Where is Provence, and why would the Brits settle there, inland, rather than in Nice, or Cannes, on the coast?
Would the same reasons apply to you? Are you driving down from the UK? Or flying into Barcelona in Spain? Driving your own car or hiring? We found that driving in our car, and paying for a night in a hotel en route, was not as cheap as flying on Ryanair and hiring a car. A hired car has the wheel on the corect side.
Driving Left Or Right
A British car has the driver on the right. A French car has the driver on the left (your left when sitting in the car) facing forwards). If you forget which side of the road to drive - does it matter? (Yes, a study found that most accidents are coming off the ferry, at the junctions and roads nearby before drivers are used to driving on the other side.)
I remember this rule, a car designed for driving in that country, a hire car, has the driver in the middle of the road, easier to see around a car in front. The front seat passenger sits on the safe to get in and out of the car, kerbside.
You want to look at three things, do you prefer mountains or seasides, what are the temperatures, are they bustling in summer or too busy, or too hot, in summer or too empty and cold and windy in winter. The sign of old windmills or new windfarms is a clue.
The Atlantic on the west coast is not as hot at the Cote dAzur, blue, sounds good, on the Mediterranean. Mediterranean, middle of the land, surrounded by land, a bit warmer.
Most people in the UK and elsewhere have heard of Nice and Cannes becuase of the film festivals. Biarritz, associated with Bardot is on the left of the map, the cooler Atlantic.
Bordeau
Should we go west or east?
Bordeau, border of the water, eau, water, as in Eau de Cologne, is the riverside estuary into the Atlantic on the west coast. they have a huge modern, multi-storey wine museum, A side trip for another time. Not a place where we would like to stay longer than a weekend.
On the opposite side of France, on the east side, is rival wine country, burgundy, burgundy red wine, inland.
But wine is everywhere in the south. Billboards invite you to destation. Often gratuit - free. That means you can taste two or three if you want to buy a bottle. Up to twenty ooof you are buying a case of the same, or an assortment of three or four. If you are that interested to try several, ask about them, chat about them, savour them, you are probably interested in buying some to take home to your holiday home or to put in your suitcase.
Wines
Drivers can also sample wines. Taste, sip but not swallow. Ask for a spittoon.
White aprkling wine is from the north, the Loire country around paris, easy to get to from the UK, an American in Paris, deserted in August, as the French go on holiday when the cities are hot, the schools are on holiday, and the overseas tourists arrive.
The south is full of wine, vineyards, as we found as we drove along. Neat rows of tiny bush vines, cut down, (pruned) like rows of little dark brown stumpy pencils, fatter thn that, more like black cucumbers, stretching for miles across fields below the hills, in winter.
Hire Cars
We also companred the cost of hire cars. Europcar was charging less than booking though booking.com, although as a regular customer we expect to get some discounts on booking.com. We were paying a budget last minute day before booking of a big car, with a boot big enough to hide our two suitcases when travelling by day, in January. The January price was about thirty pounds, shotting up to over a hundred a day for the same car (advance booking or rather checking it out in January) for use in June.
On a recent trip to France we met other expats, a couple who have a holiday home and an estate agent.
How did we get to France from the UK? How did our new friends get there?
1 Flights and Driving Routes
If you want to explore different places to live, you can take several flights in off peak seasons. If you are a student or job hunting or retired you can be flexible on days and times and seasons.
If you live in the south or south west or west of London you can drive to Luton and take Ryanair. For example to Béziers- Agde. Béziers in winter is bustling with light displays and open retaurants. Agde / is deserted, empty, not a soul to see, peaceful if you want to be alone.
2 Budget Flight Timing
Several aiports are in the south of France used by budget airlines. You could fly in and out at a weekly interval on the same flight day. Or use two different airlines from two different airports. For example, RyanAir to Béziers and back on Sundays. Or Wizzair. On Ryaniar we found you have to choose between various options, either a big check in bag and only one bag to go ounder your seat for a higher cost, or just a small wheel on bag to go on the plane.
3 Budget Flight Luggage Weight
If you come back with extra wine or food or brochures you need to have spacce in your big suitcase and still be under the weight limit. We travel with a suitcase weighing device.
At the last minute I had to throw away all my leaflets, except the three town maps. Fortunately I had anticipated this and photographed the vital pages, or tore off the piece with the address or website.
Unlike my flights on Singapore airlines, where you do both checks at one desk, and if your hand luggage is too bulky or heavy, you can move items into your big luggage, on RyanAir we had to queue to check in the heavy big bags, then go to the other area to queue with the people who had only hand luggage. My M & S food bag was too big to be allowed, onl a small food bag, so it was thrown away. I was heartbroken for several minutes.
On previous budget flights I had set next to a man who worked in London but had family in Europe. He went home to a wife or girlfriend and family every other weekend. She did the reverse on the alternate weekends. He carried no clothes because he just had something at both locations. (If you were dead set on a particular design or slogan of tee-shirts and shirts, you could buy pairs, or one of each of two colours, the green one left in Europe, the navy colour in the UK. If you are only going for the weekend. You only need the clothes you are wearing and underwear which dries out overnight (with or without the help of a towel, toilet paper or tissues, a radiator, or a hairdryer or tumble dryer. In summer weather clothes dry out faster and dry on you.
4 Season and city or beach
It is good to know the weather and crowd-quiet ratio. We chose to visit France off season. I had already read that people visited Clovelly in Cornwall and bought holiday homes because they visited in summer season when the places was lively and fun and full of people. In winter when it's cold and rainy and half the restaurants and shops are closed and everybody who lives there is indoors, it can be bleak and lonely.
Our new friends told us they chose to live in a small house in a gated compound inland. Their small town had lots of activities, bridge games, and bike rides (but you had to stay with your bike and do a round tour, because nowadays bike theves have big bolt cutters and take a chained bike. (So different from Singapore, where my husband left a bike unlocked, and it was still there when he went back). They liked the busy little town or village, rather than on the coast with its empty beach and folded umbrellas and shut cafes.
Three different people told us they chose to drive from France to Spanin, a couple of hours dirve, to Barcelona airport. From there you can get several flights a day on multiple airlines to destinations all around the world, for example long distance to Singapore. They also said that the checkin and out was easy. We heard this from the English couple we met on the flight London to Beziers and back, the British estate agent in a coastla harbour travel agency, and the Swiss receptionist at the Dali hotel in Perpignan.
Regarding Béziers, Wiki helpfully says
Béziers (French pronunciation: [bezje];[3][4] Occitan: Besièrs) is a city in southern France. It is a subprefecture of the Hérault department in the Occitanie region. Every August Béziers hosts the famous Feria de Béziers, which is centred on bullfighting. A million visitors are attracted to the five-day event.[5]
The town is located on a small bluff above the river Orb, about 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) from the Mediterranean coast and 75 kilometres (47 miles) southwest of Montpellier. At Béziers, the Canal du Midi passes over the river Orb by means of the Pont-canal de l'Orb, an aqueduct claimed to be the first of its kind.[6]
History[edit]
Béziers is one of the oldest cities in France. Research published in March 2013 shows that Béziers dates from 575 BCE, making it older than Agde (Greek Agathe Tyche, founded in 525 BCE) and slightly younger than Marseille (Greek Massalia, founded in 600 BCE).[7]
Useful Websites
Béziers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9ziers
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